For those that are still “Romantic About Baseball”, February is a very special time. The day the Pitchers and Catchers report is released signifies the start of America’s greatest pastime. (Well, at least it use to be…eh hem…football…) I digress. Nonetheless, it is still a special time for many and lets the rest know that winter is coming to an end and spring is almost upon us.
As Baseball GMs prepare their rosters for the new year, I am reminded of the 2011 blockbuster movie, Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt (Billy Beane) and Jonah Hill (Peter Brand). Though some may argue a few of the facts in Moneyball, it’s still a fantastic movie with a great premise:
Build a great team by acquiring bargain priced players based on their statistics alone. Look at the data, analyze the data, and build a team of “misfit toys”. By understanding the massive amounts of data and correlating that data correctly,seeing what other teams didn’t see, Pitt and Hill’s characters won the American League West with one of the lowest payrolls in the league.
Now I am not suggesting you build a team of “misfit toys”, I am merely suggesting that organizations should look at all the data available…and maybe take a look at that data a little differently prior to making every day and strategic decisions. Data may reside in several different systems, applications, or databases. How are these cross-platform data elements related? Are they related? How can you fast track the mashup of this data? And most importantly, how does an enterprise get the right data to the appropriate consumers of the data?
For HR and department heads: Are you hiring the best available candidates? Are your key employees staying? What is your ratio of good attrition vs. bad attrition? Diversity trends? How does your compensation stack up against competitors? Are you winning the Talent War? Are you promoting the right people? Finally, what do these breakdowns look like by manager?
For sales and marketing:How big is your actual addressable market? Which campaigns are most effective? Which Marketing programs yield the best ROI? Hottest leads? At what rate are you converting leads to opportunities? Where and why are deals stalling? What can you do to reduce your sales cycle? And of course, how does all of this stand by region?
Questions like those above, could be (and should be) asked throughout the entire enterprise. The organizations that not only ask but provide the answers in a timely fashion – dare I say real time- are the organizations that will have a tremendous competitive advantage. In today’s world of BIG Data, organizations that can quickly understand, integrate, add structure to, and analyze the data are the organizations that will make the very best decisions at all levels of the enterprise.
Just something to think about.In the meantime…”Play Ball!”
